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206 chapter eleven In P. Sestium icero’s Pro Sestio presents at least two paradoxes. First, more than any other speech of his, it responds to the prosecutors ’ speeches; yet it provides fewer details about what the prosecutors had actually said than does any other speech. Second, given that one of the main voids we face is the lack of extant “inarti‹cial proofs,” such as testimony and documents, we might expect that we would gain a particularly close view of that aspect of this case from a speech by Cicero, the In Vatinium, that is supposed to be a response to the testimony of one of the witnesses, Vatinius; yet Cicero’s attack on Vatinius reveals almost nothing about what he had said, and the little it does tell us seems to have little to do with Sestius or what crimes he was supposed to have committed. Indeed, the main piece of evidence that we gain from the In Vatinium about the vis case against Sestius is that—in the view of this prosecution witness, at least—it ought not to have been a vis case at all. If even a supporter of the prosecution had strong reservations about whether the defendant’s actions fell under the de‹nition of vis, it is dif‹cult to feel con‹dent that we can apply to this particular crime what we know about the crime of vis or the statute that established it as a crime. Sestius aided Cicero in his period of banishment (March 58–August 57) and staunchly promoted his return in his capacity as tribune of the people C in 57 B.C. (Cic. Att. 3.19.2; Q Fr. 1.4.2; Red. sen. 20; Red. pop. 15; Sest. passim), even suffering serious wounds (despite his sacrosanct status) in the effort (Cic. Q Fr. 2.3.6; Sest. 85; Red. sen. 30). In the violence of November 57 between Milo’s and Clodius’s supporters, Sestius was pro-Milonian to the point of irrationality (“Sestius furere” [Sestius was beside himself], Cic. Att. 4.3.3; trans. Shackleton Bailey). When Sestius faced prosecution, not only for vis but also for ambitus (TLRR nos. 271, 270), Cicero immediately offered his services as patronus (Cic. Q Fr. 2.3.5). Yet Cicero was not an unabashed admirer of Sestius. While in exile, he complained that the proposals of Sestius for his recall did not go quite far enough (Att. 3.20.3, 3.23.4). When he wrote his brother about his offer of help, he said that most people had expected him to be angry with Sestius and that his prompt support had made him look extremely indulgent and generous (Q Fr. 2.3.5). In his next letter to his brother (2.4.1), he reports that he leaned over backward to warrant a reputation for generosity, despite the defendant’s unreasonableness (“perversitas”) and hard-to-please (“morosus”) temperament. We do not know what reason Cicero had for anger, but it seems likely that Sestius had been a dif‹cult client, possibly offering Rome’s greatest advocate unwanted advice on how to manage the case. Sestius’s literary efforts were notoriously inept, as not only Cicero (Fam. 7.32.1; Att. 7.17.2) but also Catullus (poem 44) attest. The man who made the original postulatio on 10 February 56 was an M. Tullius (Cic. Q Fr. 2.3.5). Of him, we hear nothing more, so he either lost out in the divinatio or served as subscriptor without being mentioned by Cicero in his defense speech or elsewhere. The chief prosecutor, as it turned out, was P. Albinovanus, mentioned as a pontifex minor in 57 (Cic. Har. resp. 12).1 There was more than one prosecutor (“accusatores,” Vat. 3), and one of the other participants, presumably a subscriptor, was an otherwise unknown T. Claudius. This none too distinguished prosecutorial team was strengthened by the participation of the much better known P. Vatinius (tribune of the plebs in 59), whose role in the trial permitted Cicero to speak of the formal prosecutors as tools of Vatinius (“a te accusatores esse instructos et subornatos” [the prosecutors had been instructed and coached by you], 3), with the additional elaboration by Cicero to the effect that not only did Vatinius advise the prosecutors but Clodius supported them (“. . . alter tuis consiliis, illo tamen adiuvante” [ . . . the other at your suggestion, but with his assistance], 41). A Clodian role is supported by the...

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